The sky burned.
Lightning and explosions painted the clouds in purple and gold as two Queens fought for supremacy. We watched from below - Rias, Kiba, Koneko, and me - unable to intervene, unable to look away.
Everything depended on this.
Akeno and Yubelluna circled each other like predators, each searching for the killing blow. Their power painted the sky in violence - thunder against fire, holy against demonic. Neither willing to retreat. Neither able to land the decisive strike.
"Come on, Akeno," Rias whispered. "Finish her."
Yubelluna struck first.
Explosions bloomed across the sky - not one or two, but a dozen. A carpet bombing designed to leave no escape. The detonations chained together, creating overlapping kill zones that filled every escape route.
Akeno dove, twisted, flew with desperate precision. She dodged three explosions, four, five - but the sixth caught her wing.
Pain blazed across her face. She spiraled, trailing smoke, barely recovering before the next volley arrived.
"You're slowing down," Yubelluna called, her voice carrying triumph. "All that power, and you can't even touch me."
Lightning crackled. Akeno's counter-strike split the air, aimed at Yubelluna's heart.
The Bomb Queen laughed. Detonated the lightning mid-flight.
"Is that all you have? The famous Priestess of Thunder?"
Akeno's jaw tightened. She raised her hands, power building.
More lightning. More explosions. Neither able to gain advantage.
Until Yubelluna found her opening.
The explosion hit Akeno center-mass.
I saw it happen in slow motion - the detonation, the impact, the way her body crumpled around the force. She flew backward, trailing fire and blood, crashing through the roof of the replica school's gymnasium.
"Akeno!" Rias screamed.
Yubelluna descended toward the hole, power building for the killing blow.
"Such a shame," she said. "All that potential, wasted on a half-breed. Lord Riser will be pleased when I - "
Lightning erupted from the gymnasium.
Not purple. Not the demonic lightning Akeno had been using.
Golden. Holy. Burning with power that shouldn't exist in a devil's hands.
Yubelluna's eyes went wide. "What - "
The lightning struck her mid-flight, sending her spinning. She recovered, stared at the figure rising from the rubble.
Akeno stood in the ruins, but she'd changed.
One wing of pure darkness. One wing of brilliant light. Fallen angel and devil, merged into something that shouldn't exist but did. Her eyes blazed with power - holy and demonic intertwined.
"You're right," Akeno said. "I am a half-breed."
The memory hit her like lightning.
A shrine on a hillside. Her mother's gentle hands. The warmth of a home before the Fallen came.
"Akeno, my precious daughter. Never forget - you are exactly what you were meant to be."
Then blood. Fire. The wings she'd inherited from a father who didn't deserve her. The power that had gotten her mother killed.
For years, she'd hated it. Hated him. Hated the fallen angel blood that made her an abomination in the eyes of everyone who knew the truth.
But hatred was heavy. And she was tired of carrying it.
"I am not just devil," Akeno said, her voice carrying across the battlefield. "Not just fallen."
She raised her hands. Holy lightning and demonic power merged, becoming something greater than either.
"I am exactly what I need to be."
Yubelluna's face twisted with disgust. "You're an abomination!"
"Perhaps." Akeno smiled - not her teasing smile, but something fiercer. Something free. "But I'm an abomination who's about to destroy you."
She struck.
The next thirty seconds redefined what power meant.
Akeno unleashed everything she had - every drop of holy lightning, every fragment of demonic energy. The sky became a storm of golden and purple destruction, each bolt aimed with perfect precision.
Yubelluna fought back. Explosions bloomed, barriers formed, counter-attacks launched. She was Power Level 70, one of the strongest Queens in the Rating Game circuit.
It wasn't enough.
Holy lightning pierced through explosions like they weren't there. The Fallen power that Akeno had spent years suppressing burned with the fury of a woman who'd finally accepted herself. Each strike carried more force than the last.
"This is impossible!" Yubelluna screamed, raising barrier after barrier. "You can't be this strong!"
"I was always this strong." Another lightning bolt shattered Yubelluna's defenses. "I just didn't allow myself to be."
The Bomb Queen tried to flee. Akeno didn't let her.
Golden lightning wrapped around Yubelluna like chains, holding her in place. She struggled, power flaring, but the holy element burned where it touched. Smoke rose from her robes. Cracks appeared in her barrier.
"Please - " Yubelluna started.
"You killed my family," Akeno said softly. "Not you personally. But your kind. Fallen angels who saw my mother as nothing more than a human to discard."
Lightning intensified.
"This is for her."
The final strike was beautiful and terrible. A pillar of golden-purple light that connected heaven and earth for a single, perfect moment. Yubelluna's scream echoed across the dimension, then cut off abruptly.
"One Queen, Riser Phenex, retired."
Akeno fell.
She'd given everything - every reserve, every scrap of power. Her wings flickered and vanished as she plummeted toward the ground, unconscious before she'd even begun to drop.
"Asia!" Rias commanded. "Now!"
The teleportation circle blazed. Asia appeared beneath Akeno's falling form, catching her in a wave of healing light. The green glow wrapped around the fallen Queen, stabilizing wounds, restoring what could be restored.
"She's alive," Asia reported, her voice shaking with relief. "Exhausted, but alive. She needs rest."
"Get her to the base. Keep her stable."
Another teleportation flash. Asia and Akeno vanished, leaving us four against one.
Riser.
I felt it.
Akeno's moment of self-acceptance - the way she'd embraced both halves of her nature instead of hating what she was. It resonated in my chest, stirring something I couldn't quite name.
The Fragment stirred. "Interesting. Her acceptance. It echoes within you."
What do you mean?
"She stopped fighting what she is. Stopped hating the parts of herself she couldn't change. You..." A pause. "You still struggle."
I didn't have time to process that. Riser was descending from his throne, Phoenix flames wreathing him like a cloak of immortality.
But the Fragment's words lingered. Akeno had accepted her nature. I was still running from mine.
Maybe that would matter someday.
Right now, we had a Phoenix to kill.
The Queen fell. Riser stood alone.
For the first time since the Rating Game began, his smile faltered.
"Impressive," he admitted, landing before us with flames dancing in his wake. "I didn't think Akeno had it in her. That holy lightning - it would actually hurt, if she'd aimed it at me."
"She was busy," Rias said, Power of Destruction crackling around her hands. "We're not."
"Indeed." Riser spread his arms, Phoenix fire intensifying. "Queens are replaceable. Kings are not."
The flames erupted, wreathing him in immortal fire so bright it hurt to look at. His Power Level - already 85 - seemed to swell with the dramatic display.
"Come then, little devils."
His eyes found mine. Something flickered there - recognition, maybe. Curiosity about the Pawn who'd survived everything his peerage could throw.
"Come and die."